


moves I'll never use

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Animal!Louis Fest, Cat Louis, Cats, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 18:12:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16837786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: Sometimes when Louis is a cat, he likes to hang out with Harry's cats.





	moves I'll never use

Of all the animals Louis could turn into at will, being a cat isn't all that bad an option. As a human person, he much prefers the company of dogs, but he doesn't mind the company of a cat when a cat is nearby and offering company. And he's been told he's actually quite sweet as a cat, much more obliging than he is as himself.

Sometimes when he's in London, he goes over to Harry's solely to hang out with Harry's cats, even if Harry isn't home. It's not like Louis doesn't have a key. He parks a few blocks away if there's anyone who even looks like they might be a pap. There were a few times where he thought about running through Harry's neighbors' gardens as a cat so he can avoid actual people, but then he'd only end up on Harry's back patio naked and without a key, so that won't do.

Louis does go around the back and leave his clothes there when it suits, though. 

He sauntered in on Harry shagging some model bird once, who'd tilted her head at him and asked when Harry got another cat. "This one wanders in from off the street," Harry replied, dry, and Louis would have laughed if he was regular. Instead he went past without giving them another look, and found Dusty and Molly napping in a sunbeam on one of the guest beds, hearing the model saying, "You shouldn't let strange animals just into your house, Harry, how would that cat even..." until her voice fades out as he curls up with the other cats, chin on Dusty's back. 

Later - much later, judging from the lack of sunbeam - Harry'd come up the stairs and sat down on the bed next to them. Louis isn't the greatest at observing the passage of time when he's a cat, mostly relying on the quality of outside light, so he wasn't clear on how long he'd been in a pile with Molly and Dusty. 

Harry scratched his fingertips over Louis's head and rubbed around his ears, a thing Louis is often annoyed at enjoying. "You staying a kitty all day, or getting a takeaway with me?"

That day, Louis was having the sort of time where he didn't much care to think about his human problems. He licked his paw, then Dusty's head. Harry only chuckled. "I'll get food for us both, and you can eat it if you want," he said, and after some time spent stretching and batting at Molly's twitching tail, Louis had jumped down from the bed, turned back into his regular human self with a groan, and gone to find some joggers or whatever in Harry's room.

Today he lets himself in to a quiet house. He texted Harry first, just _r the cats home?_ , and gotten _yes but don't you care about meeeeee?_ in reply. Which he ignores, of course, and leaves his tracksuit over the back of the couch before turning in a cat. He finds Dusty asleep behind one of the armchairs. It's a cool, dim spot, so Louis settles in to nap there for a bit. 

Dusty nudges him awake awhile later, licking Louis's ear. There's the jingling sound of keys in the lock, footsteps, the crinkling sound of some shopping being set down. Then the scent of Harry's cologne, followed by Harry's face appearing over the back of the armchair. "Found you two," he says. "Where's Moll?"

Louis isn't sure where Molly is. Harry's face disappears, and Louis hears his footsteps jogging up the stairs. Louis puts his paw in Dusty's face for a second. Dusty only grumbles and rolls over, reaching for a fluff of dust or lint or whatever in the corner. Louis wiggles out from under the chair and jumps on the sofa. One of the stupid throw pillows is in the middle. He settles on top of it.

Harry bounds back downstairs with Molly in his arms. "If this is your idea of being a jerk, Tommo, it's only a pillow." He deposits Molly on the sofa next to Louis, and she flops down, stretching her front paws off the edge. "Oh," Harry says, frowning at them. "Where do I get to sit?"

Louis flicks his tail. 

"Tea?" Harry calls, going into the kitchen.

That's low. Louis almost never turns down a cuppa. But if he stays a cat, Harry might brush him. His sisters are rubbish at it, and Louis can't exactly do it himself. He's got one of those self-groomer things at his flat but it's nowhere near the same. So he stays balanced on the pillow. Harry gives him a look when he returns with two steaming mugs, like he's hip to Louis's ploy. 

"Fine," Harry says, after a moment of blowing across the surface of his cup. "But if we're not quick about it, your tea will be cold, and then you'll bitch."

Louis moves off the pillow in reply. Harry fishes the brush from the basket under the table, and nudges Molly over a bit so he can take a seat. She makes a protesting sound but doesn't get down. Louis flicks his tail against Harry's arm, then nudges his hand. "Pushy," Harry mutters. 

But he does brush Louis's fur then, in long smooth strokes. It's nice. Conversationally, he says, "You do make a nice-looking cat. I quite like the stripes."

Louis shoves his face into Harry's palm again. "Fine, fine," Harry laughs. Gently, he fixes the fur around Louis's ears, then pats his bum, making Louis hiss. Harry only laughs at him again. "Be a human now and drink your tea."

Louis jumps down and goes around the back of the sofa to change. Harry grins at him, wide and bright, as Louis pulls on his bottoms. "Hey, your hair stayed where I put it."

"Fuck off," Louis replies, running a hand over his head. "Where's my tea?"

"No shirt, no shoes, no service." Harry waves a lazy hand at Louis's state of undress. "Hi, Tommo."

Just for that, Louis doesn't bother with his top. The tea's still hot. Harry makes it decent enough for a bloke who'd just as soon have a green juice. 

Louis heads home once his mug is empty, turning down Harry's offer that he stay, they could watch some telly and laze about for a while. "I've got to tidy up, it's my turn with the dogs tomorrow and Cliff likes to get into shit," he says, feeling a bit awkward as he tosses his keys from one hand to the other. 

"Sure," Harry says easily, but he looks like he doesn't quite believe what Louis is saying. He rubs a hand over Dusty's head. "Another time, for sure."

Louis nods, then lets himself out with a wave. 

The next few weeks pass in a hurry. Louis stays steadily busy with various projects, then going to see Freddie for a few days, then home for a while. He's back in London for meetings about things with the label when he starts to get that feeling again, like there's a muscle he needs to stretch. 

The last he knew, Harry was in California, but he texts anyway. _are your cats home_

Harry texts back after only a few minutes. _ofc_

Louis heads over later that night. Only Dusty and Molly are there, but the house smells of patchouli and vanilla, and there are open jar candles on the coffee table that still smell of fire, so Louis knows Harry's been there fairly recently. He jumps up onto the table and eyes the metal lid from the candle, in a perfect spot for hitting it off the table onto the floor. Then Dusty runs in, catnip mouse in his mouth, and Louis jumps down to play with him instead. 

Harry left a newspaper out, so they drag pieces of it about the house for a while, before settling down in a sunbeam that directly crosses Harry's bed. Molly curls around him and licks his head for a while, and it's warm and cozy, and they all fall asleep.

He wakes up much later to the sound of voices and the smell of chicken jalfrezi. He stretches lazily and bats at Dusty for a moment, but Dusty's still mostly asleep and only opens one eye at him, so Louis jumps down from the bed and goes to see who all has come over. It sounds like Grimshaw, and when Louis gets to the bottom of the stairs, he can smell the cologne and hair product that definitely identify Nick. 

"There you are," Harry says, scooping Louis up into his arms so quickly that Louis nearly startles. Almost. He settles for an annoyed whine and an extension of his claws against Harry's arm, but Harry doesn't put him down. "Figured you were off napping. You're very warm."

"Hello, Louis," Nick says, chucking him lightly under the chin. Louis allows it, then stretches in Harry's arms in an attempt to sniff at the takeaway on the table. 

"Excuse me, you're the one who said not to feed you as a cat," Harry admonishes. He drops Louis onto the sofa, then pets him gently 'round the ears. It's nice, but then Harry ruins it by adding, "Be a real boy if you want curry."

Louis does not want to be a real boy just yet, and he feels skittish about demanding Harry pet him some more while Nick's there. So he jumps onto the coffee table and knocks the candle jar lid down onto the floor, but Harry only rolls his eyes and goes off to eat. Louis runs after Molly, and they chase each other around the house for a while, sliding on the polished floors, then tumbling across Harry's fancy Turkish rugs, until Louis finally feels like he could be his human self again.

He left his trackies and his cigarettes on one of the garden lounges, and Harry's left the back door cracked open, so Louis slips outside and turns back into himself. He can hear the murmur of Harry and Nick's voices from indoors a while longer. He has a fag, then fishes the football out from under one of the chairs, and dribbles it up and down the length of the garden for a while, lit by the solar lamps set all along the edges of the landscaping. 

"Bit chill to be outdoors this time of night without a shirt on, Tommo," Harry says from behind him, and puts a hoodie over Louis's shoulders. 

"Thanks." He grinds what's left of his fag into the ashtray Harry's got out on the patio table, then sticks his arms properly through the sleeves. "Grimmers still here?"

"Nah, gone home, he's got some early thing. There's leftovers if you want."

"Cheers."

Harry squeezes him around the middle. "You can ask for a cuddle when you're human too, you know," he murmurs into Louis's ear. "Don't have to come over as a cat."

Louis thinks about how he and Harry have barely touched in the last four years, that almost over awareness of how they acted in any place there could be a camera bleeding over slowly into how they acted in places there weren't any prying eyes. Louis's body still remembers Harry at seventeen, back when they were always in each other's laps, when hugs and kisses were sweet and casually traded.

He knows it's weird, but it's true anyway. He misses that very specific moment in time a lot, and often, and Harry wrapped around him now is a painful reminder.

"Be a bit odd to come over and crawl into yours at three in the morning as meself, yeah?" he replies, after too long a silence has stretched.

"Never." Harry presses a gentle kiss to his jaw.

"Don't," Louis breathes out, before he even realizes he's saying anything at all.

Harry's grip only tightens instead of loosens. "What?"

Harry means, _Don't what, kiss you?_ , he means _What do you mean, don't?_ , he means _What's been wrong with you?_ \- and Louis makes the smallest attempt to move away but Harry doesn't budge, and Louis sighs, leaning back into him. It feels like it's been forever since he's let himself relax into Harry in this way. 

It has been forever, really.

"Sorry," he whispers, when Harry seems to be waiting for him to answer. 

"Don't be daft." Harry strokes a slow hand over his belly. "You want to come back inside?"

"Yes."

They go in, and Molly twists around Louis's feet as Harry does him up a plate of leftover curry. He picks her up and rubs his cheek against her soft head. She licks his nose. "I wonder if they know it's still me."

Harry smiles at that. "They never love on anybody else this much, so I think they do."

Louis hides his face in Molly's fur a moment longer, then sets her down gently. Harry pushes the plate into his hands and Louis blinks at it for a moment - Harry ordered his favorite, even though Louis could have left at any moment. "Go and eat it, babe," Harry says.

Louis takes his food and sits at Harry's ridiculous modern glass dining table. Harry brings him a beer, but then disappears, and Louis doesn't look for where Harry's gone until he's finished and dropped his plate in the sink, noting the open bottle of wine on the counter. 

He follows the faint sound of music to the room Harry uses as a place to pile up the books and instruments he picks up everywhere. His contractor put in shelving, but there are still books stacked on the floor, while framed pictures clutter the shelves instead. "I know you're not reading," Louis says jokingly as he steps into the room.

Harry's on the awful velvet loveseat, a guitar in his lap and Dusty tucked up against his side, and his fingers are moving on the frets in unison with the music he's got on, but he's not really playing. "Don't like my library?" he asks, grinning up at Louis. 

"I like that you've left it on the floor."

Harry's grin gets wider, his dimples flashing. He sets the guitar gently back in the stand. Then he holds out his arms. "Proper cuddle now?"

"Not on that ridiculous piece of furniture," Louis replies immediately. 

"Could go up to bed?"

Louis takes a careful breath, fiddling with the strings of the hoodie. "Yeah, alright."

Harry gets up, mindful of his stacks of books and carefully balanced guitars, and Louis moves aside to let Harry precede him from the room. Dusty and Molly are stretched out on the rug in front of the unlit fireplace, Dusty's face smushed against Molly's back, and for some reason that makes Louis feel uncertain all over again. 

"Let me put some food out for them," Harry says, heading for the kitchen. "Want some of this wine?"

Louis has had nowhere near enough alcohol to be in a bed with Harry. "Yes. No."

"Which is it?" Harry asks over his shoulder. He puts dry food in the cats' saucers, then looks up at Louis. "I am out of beer, sorry. Grimmy drank most of it."

"I'll, um. The wine is fine, Harry."

Harry's mouth quirks and he pours them each a large glass, which finishes off the bottle. Louis drinks a third of it just standing there. It tastes like red wine - he's no good at telling which are better than others, they mostly all seem the same to him. Louis drinks beer because he likes the taste of it and hard liquor because he wants to get fucked up, and he doesn't really give a shit about wine. 

"I could turn into a cat again," he offers. Harry's heading for the stairs, so Louis follows.

"What, why? Don't be - don't be funny, babe."

"Already slept on your bed once today as a cat."

Harry only gives him that fond, indulgent look at that, and reaches to take Louis's free hand in his own. His bedroom is on the top floor, and neither of them say anything the rest of the way. Once there, Harry puts his glass down on the nightstand and fully flings open all of the heavy curtains, letting in the night sky and the barest yellow light from the few streetlamps down below.

"Louis," Harry says, as Louis drinks another third of his wine in another fit of idiotic uncertainty.

"Yeah?"

"Come be in this bed with me."

Harry sits on the edge of it, bright in his white t-shirt and dumb yellow joggers against the dark comforter, and holds his arms out again. Louis feels like his whole body is shaking, but he drains his glass and sets it down steadily enough, and steps into Harry's embrace. Harry hugs him tightly around the waist, then twists and dumps Louis onto his back on the bed. 

"I've missed you," Louis says, as Harry settles in next to him, one arm over Louis's waist and his other hand resting in Louis's hair. Louis traces his fingertips along the lines of Harry's arm, from his elbow to his knuckles. "I 'spose I'm sorry isn't enough."

"It wasn't just you, and all that tabloid stuff." Harry's fingertips skim his forehead. "We all kind of chilled, you know, with the touching."

"Yeah."

"I still always wanted, to be how we all were and stuff, but." Harry shrugs, and the movement presses them even tighter together. "It is what it is, yeah?"

Louis feels that tell-tale prickle behind his eyelids. He concentrates on skimming his fingers over Harry's, over the lines of tattoos he knows almost as well as his own, remembers touching those same tattoos not long after Harry got most of them, remembers the hiss of Harry's breath when Louis would press his fingertips to the sensitive skin. 

"No one's here now," Harry sighs. The words are warm against Louis's cheek. "Just us."

Everything in Louis suddenly thrills at the prospect of having a secret no one else knows, only him and Harry, a secret no one will even think to ask them about these days. He feels a few tears escape from beneath his eyelashes, but it's fine, just the letting go of something he held unmoving so long it nearly calcified. He feels Harry's mouth follow the wet line for a second before Harry says again, "Just us," and Louis lifts Harry's hand to his lips to kiss his palm and repeat the words.

**Author's Note:**

> Does Harry actually have cats? Who knows. Does Louis actually like cats? Apparently not. Hello fiction.
> 
> Title from Kathleen Edwards. Thanks to R. for the proofread/cheerlead!


End file.
